RSSChallenges for the nomadic worker: Part 1: In Sync
By external author | In EN, knowledge base, research results, team blog | 5 reacties.
In the series of posts on the main challenges for the nomadic worker, this part focusses on the challenge to be up-to-date with the people you are collaborating with: being in sync.
What is being “In Sync”?
For an individual, being in sync refers to a mental state characterized by the ability to easily put information and activities in their proper context. In sync is situational, i.e., one is typically in sync with a group of people, a project or an activity.
Why is being “In Sync” important?
Being in sync helps you to be effective:
- Knowing what’s going on.
- Being on top of things.
- Having an overview.
- Seeing the bigger picture.
- Being able to put things in perspective.
- Understanding why others do certain things.
- Understanding what is expected from you.
This does not mean that you always needs to be in sync with all people you are collaborating with. Staying in sync comes at a price: it requires attention. Therefore, a stream of information about the activities of others can be counterproductive for concentrated work. Also, when working on multiple projects, you need to be more in sync with the people relevant given your current context, but maybe the level of being in sync with others may be somewhat lower.
Our research hypotheses about “In Sync”
- “In sync” can be useful for “doing things right”, but it is essential for “doing the right things”.
- One can become addicted to being in sync.
Our research questions about “In Sync”
- In how many different contexts (e.g., projects) can an individual work effectively?
- How to facilitate context switches at the right moments (e.g., without hindering flow)?
- What can make “being in sync” so addictive? Are there any downsides to being an “in sync addict”?
- Are younger generations more capable of staying “in sync”? Can this be trained in older generations?
Tags: in sync, information overload
Interesting stuff! I’m looking forward to read your answers to these research questions. My question would be: what does ‘in sync’ mean in the real and in the virtual world? Is this difference very large and can we bridge the difference? I talked to an IT director yesterday. He’s responsible for about 80 people and he goes to his company office 1 day per week! How does he stay ‘in sync’? It doesn’t seem to be a problem for him (and for his employees?).
There is a famous saying in English: if you always do what you did you will always get what you already got.
I wonder if staying in sync leads to doing the right things. One thing that it stimulates is creating an echo chamber of people echoing what the other just said in a bit different wording. Each of these variations you need to interprete and costs time. This can clearly been seen on the internet in many blogs where many people simply recycle one original thought.
Also, research shows that this type of in sync may lead to trivialisation, like it does on sites like Digg (it is especially the trivial type of news that tends to reach the top).
So we may rephrase the statement at the start as: If you do what everybody does you get Andre Rieu…
“Staying in sync comes at a price: it requires attention”. More exactly, it requires that you divide your attention over information streams about people, activities, and contexts in which you collaborate. So the cost is _division_ of attention.
in today’s 25X7 business environment, being in sync needs a mind set thats not easy to achieve, worse yet to maintain consistently quarter over quarter.
dividing attention between projects will never let you stay in-sync. in an environment where transactions are carried out with micro-second accuracy, losing focus will not help.
achiving this mindset will need you to possess certain multi-tasking capabilities, which is not a global character. dynamically assessing priorities and shifting them around real-time events is a hidden risk
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